Singapore will welcome a roster of Olympic champions and world-record holders at the World Aquatics Swimming World Cup 2024 this month, with Paris 2024 stars Leon Marchand and Pan Zhanle among those confirmed for the Oct 31-Nov 2 event. Organisers also unveiled the line-up of Team Singapore swimmers who will be competing at the OCBC Aquatic Centre, including SEA Games gold medallists Teong Tzen Wei and Amanda Lim.

Frenchman Marchand, who won four golds at the Paris 2024 Olympics, leads the men’s field. He will be joined by World and Olympic champions Thomas Ceccon, Chad le Clos and Nicolo Martinenghi as well as World Aquatics Swimming World Cup 2023 overall men’s winner Qin Haiyang.

Meanwhile, another multiple Paris 2024 gold medallist Kaylee McKeown headlines a star-studded women’s line-up that also includes World and Olympic champions Zhang Yufei, Kate Douglass and Siobhan Haughey. Douglass, McKeown, and Zhang have also achieved the rare golden treble of winning individual gold medals at the World Aquatics Championships, Olympic Games, and World Aquatics Swimming Championships (25m).

Defending overall women’s champion McKeown comes into the Swimming World Cup showing her short-course speed. Just two weeks ago on Sept 26, she broke the World Record in the Women’s 100m Backstroke at the 2024 Australian National Championships (25m), clocking 54.56sec to rewrite fellow Australian Minna Atherton’s previous mark of 54.89. McKeown also holds the Women’s 200m Backstroke World Record, while Haughey enters this Swimming World Cup season as the World Record-holder in the Women’s 200m Freestyle.

The international athletes announced by World Aquatics are:

These swimmers are set to compete in all three legs of the World Aquatics Swimming World Cup 2024, World Aquatics announced on Tuesday. The short course series kicks off in Shanghai before moving to Incheon from Oct 24 to 26 and culminating in the Singapore finale. Each leg will see a male and female champion crowned based on points earned according to the Swimming World Cup 2024 scoring system. The overall series champion will be crowned in Singapore.

Nearly 250 athletes from 38 international National Federations are set to compete in Singapore, with the full line-up to be announced soon.

Singapore’s Teong will return to the pool at the first leg of the Swimming World Cup 2024 in Shanghai after an elbow injury kept him out for eight months.

The 26-year-old is no stranger to the Swimming World Cup, having clinched two silver relay medals at the Singapore leg in 2018. He will now be looking to make up for lost time as he gears up for the short-course season and a packed 2025 calendar that includes the World Aquatics Championships in Singapore and the year-end South-east Asian Games in Thailand.

He said: “The preparation for the World Cup has been good, especially after not being able to swim the qualifying trials for the Olympics. The (recovery) process was pretty hard, I had some dark days but what kept me motivated was that I didn’t want to end my career on a low so I’m just training to get better. I just want to go out there and get some racing done and do some proper swimming rather than just training and recovering all year round. I feel really excited to race against the best swimmers in the world because I’ll get to see where I place. I’m looking forward to racing in front of the home crowd because it’s something we rarely get to do and I hope to put on a show for my fellow Singaporeans.”

Lim, whose last competitive outing was in July at the 2024 Canadian Championships, is also looking forward to racing in front of her friends and family having been training and competing overseas for most of the year. Her exploits saw her swimming in Australia, Hong Kong and Canada before she resumed training here a few weeks ago.

She said: “It’s exciting for me because I love racing on home ground with everyone in the stands. The atmosphere at an international event is different. The fact that you know there are a lot more Singaporeans in the stands and it’s being watched by eyes all over the world is quite exciting. It comes with pressure and stress, but I am proud that Singapore is hosting international events. This puts Singapore on the world map and we can showcase to the world how a small country like us dreams big. Not many people have experienced international live swimming events before and having events like this is the best experience they can get besides the Olympics.”

After embarking on a new training programme this year and going below 25 seconds in her pet 50m freestyle (long course) in June, the 31-year-old Lim is buoyed by renewed confidence as she looks ahead to the Swimming World Cup and 2025 World Aquatics Championships. She said: “Preparations have been going well and we’re moving in the right direction. After doing extensive physical and technical analysis and comparing myself to the top female sprinters in the world, I am up there with them and that’s where my team comes in to help with the fine tuning. I’ll admit that I’m swimming in uncharted waters and I don’t know what the future holds, but the most important thing is that I am feeling good and positive about my process right now and I’m enjoying myself.”

The duo will be joined by a slew of experienced and newer teammates, including Ong Jung Yi, Chantal Liew and Ashley Lim. 26 out of the 40-strong contingent will be making their World Cup debuts this year. The full list of Singapore swimmers racing in the series can be found in Annex A.

Associate Professor Kenneth Goh, Singapore Aquatics president, said: “The Singapore leg of the World Aquatics Swimming World Cup 2024 is shaping up to be an exciting one with some of the best in the world set to compete here. I’m also looking forward to seeing our Team Singapore swimmers like Tzen Wei putting on strong performances in front of the home crowd. This is their chance to test themselves against the best in the business and I’m sure there’s going to be an electrifying atmosphere at the OCBC Aquatic Centre. It is an exciting time for aquatics fans. It is not every day that we get to watch such world-class swimmers in our backyard so soon after their Olympic triumph as well. This is also a preview of what’s to come for the World Aquatics Championship next year.”

Tickets for the World Aquatics Swimming World Cup 2024 in Singapore are available at https://www.sistic.com.sg/events/waswc1024. All Finals across the three days are sold out with only limited slots available for the heats sessions.

This year’s Swimming World Cup offers a prize purse of US$1.2 million, with additional bonuses, including US$10,000 for breaking a World Record and US$10,000 for athletes who win the same event in all three cities.

The level of performance at last year’s World Cup reached new heights, with two World Records and 33 Swimming World Cup Records set during last year’s Swimming World Cup 2023 tour. With the World Aquatics Swimming Championships (25m) – Budapest 2024 coming up in December, fans can expect even more exhilarating swimming action in Singapore as the athletes strive to qualify for the event in Hungary.